THE JOURNALIST AND THE ASSASSIN

This is an article of mine which was published in Italy Magazine on Thursday. While I was researching it, I found what I read disturbing and it still disturbs me. I am republishing my article here because I would really like to know what you all think.

“All the world loves a lover” but in Italy at the moment a pair of “lovers by correspondence” are inspiring curiosity rather than romantic sentiment: the journalist Donatella Papi, champion of the Rom [Roma], director of the online newspaper Comincialitalia * and former special correspondent for Il Giornale, has announced that she wishes to marry Angelo Izzo, who is serving a life sentence for two murders.

Corriere della Sera reports that Ms Papi has written to the governor of Rome’s Velletri prison to request a meeting with Izzo in order to make wedding plans and obtain the necessary documentation to marry within the prison. Izzo, 56, has told a journalist that he and Ms Papi, 53, have been corresponding and have thereby developed a deep affinity for each other. He confirms that marriage is a possibility and states that this may happen sooner rather than later.

Izzo was convicted for his involvement in the so-called “Circeo Massacre” of 1975: He and two others invited two young women they had met casually to a party at a villa in San Felice Circeo [Latina, Lazio]. There, for nearly two days, 17-year-old Donatella Colasanti and her 19-year-old friend Rosaria Lopez were systematically tortured and raped. The men then killed Rosaria and attempted to kill Donatella but she miraculously managed to raise the alarm and subsequently survived her ordeal and physical injuries. She was psychologically damaged for the rest of her life and died in 2005. In the same year Izzo was released on parole and brutally murdered a mother and her 14-year-old daughter. The case caused much debate about the penal system in Italy.

Donatella Papi worked for the women’s magazine Gioia before moving to Il Giornale and was chief Press Officer for the D’Alema government. She has also worked for Ansa and for political institutions. She has published two books, Avere un figlio [To Have a Child] and Come avere un figlio con la fecondazione artificiale [How to have a child by artificial insemination]. Donatella Papi currently lives and works among Rom communities in Eastern Europe.

*I have not linked to the site because I am getting "harmful to your computer" messages when I try to click on it.